Franchise Zoo file will NOT Load!!

Sweet Rainbow

S
Help!! I already opened a ticket!
Franchise Zoo will not load! The file I spent hours and have my prize animals does not open, I waited over 15 minutes already, quit the game and tried again and nothing! Another Franchize Zoo file opened that I do not use, but I want my main file, this is so upsetting
I do not plan to open another Zoo, please I need help, if the save file is lost forever I need to know so I can ask for a refund from Steam, as I do not plan on spend more hours with another zoo just to have it lost again
This game, unfortunately, has provided me with more frustration than fun
 

Locce

Locce
I've worked with the lovely support people on this issue when this bug ate my main zoo mid-December. Later a second zoo was affected and both times it coincided with a server disconnect - one where you are forced to save and exit to main menu (but I would not claim that this is the only way to catch that bug).

What you can do - apart from contacting support, of course - is look up your save files for that zoo and delete the most recent one. (It might be smart to make backups first, just in case.) It can happen that you have multiple saves from after such a hiccup. In that case try loading your zoo and if it still doesn't load delete another one, repeat until you hit a save that works. Worst case scenario is you lose your complete progress from your last game session in that zoo... and, well, this problem:
Even if you manage to load your zoo with an older save game your trade centre will probably be "toxic" now, meaning whenever you put an animal into it or take one out of it your next save will be unloadable. This means that until the devs manage to corner this bug and fix it you will not be able to meaningfully progress your zoo, considering how central to Planet Zoo gameplay interactions with the trade centre are.

What you can do then is put the animals from your broken zoo into storage and build another zoo. You can do it all in one go, but depending on the number of animals this can be a bit risky for the stability of your populations. (Remember that you can't buy new animals before you have reduced the number of animals in storage to less than 30.) So, it might be a good idea to do it in smaller batches - which requires you to delete the newest save game before you can go back into your broken zoo for more since those would be unloadable, too.

As far as I can tell there is no risk in recovering the animals like that. The animals themselves are not connected to the problem. It rather seems to be a problem with your zoo getting "out of synch" with the server.
I hope this helps a bit - provided that your bug is the same as mine - and that the devs manage to fix this bug and maybe even restore the broken zoos to working order with that.
 

Arrakai

A
My zoo didn't die after a crash. I just put down some flowers (had just finished the zoo itself and started to decorate it. I logged of for a short while and then when I tried to log in again I got the infinite loading screen :(
I'm almost hessitent to build a new zoo now (that was my only "real" zoo, the one I lost) since there is a strong possibility that I will lose that one too after a while due to this bug, since the new update didn't fix it at all :(
 

Jileha

J
Arrakai said:
My zoo didn't die after a crash. I just put down some flowers (had just finished the zoo itself and started to decorate it. I logged of for a short while and then when I tried to log in again I got the infinite loading screen :(
I'm almost hessitent to build a new zoo now (that was my only "real" zoo, the one I lost) since there is a strong possibility that I will lose that one too after a while due to this bug, since the new update didn't fix it at all :(
Click to expand...

An update might fix the cause of the problem, but not necessarily the effects. In other words, you may have to give a new zoo a chance and hope for the best. Keep in mind that, although many players have lost their zoos this way, the majority of players is apparently not affected (knock on wood!)

Think about the fun you had building your zoo. Make an even better zoo based on everything you’ve learned in your previous one. Don’t think of your goal as building THE ONE zoo of your dreams. There are all the different biomes, so many animals to choose from, so many new building styles to try out... keep thinking positive and don’t deprive yourself of the fun! A new zoo is a new opportunity!

My problem is that I have too many ideas for different zoos, so I am working on several different ones at the same time. I would be upset as well if I wouldn’t be able to open one or even two of my zoos, but when I build something I am really happy with, I save it as blueprint to make it available in all my zoos. So these items or habitats will not get lost. You can probably save large areas by simply putting a barrier around it and turning it into a habitat. And maybe make regularly extra copies of your save games under different names.
 

marcnesiumHH

M
Locce said:
I've worked with the lovely support people on this issue when this bug ate my main zoo mid-December. Later a second zoo was affected and both times it coincided with a server disconnect - one where you are forced to save and exit to main menu (but I would not claim that this is the only way to catch that bug).

What you can do - apart from contacting support, of course - is look up your save files for that zoo and delete the most recent one. (It might be smart to make backups first, just in case.) It can happen that you have multiple saves from after such a hiccup. In that case try loading your zoo and if it still doesn't load delete another one, repeat until you hit a save that works. Worst case scenario is you lose your complete progress from your last game session in that zoo... and, well, this problem:
Even if you manage to load your zoo with an older save game your trade centre will probably be "toxic" now, meaning whenever you put an animal into it or take one out of it your next save will be unloadable. This means that until the devs manage to corner this bug and fix it you will not be able to meaningfully progress your zoo, considering how central to Planet Zoo gameplay interactions with the trade centre are.

What you can do then is put the animals from your broken zoo into storage and build another zoo. You can do it all in one go, but depending on the number of animals this can be a bit risky for the stability of your populations. (Remember that you can't buy new animals before you have reduced the number of animals in storage to less than 30.) So, it might be a good idea to do it in smaller batches - which requires you to delete the newest save game before you can go back into your broken zoo for more since those would be unloadable, too.

As far as I can tell there is no risk in recovering the animals like that. The animals themselves are not connected to the problem. It rather seems to be a problem with your zoo getting "out of synch" with the server.
I hope this helps a bit - provided that your bug is the same as mine - and that the devs manage to fix this bug and maybe even restore the broken zoos to working order with that.
Click to expand...
What had the support people responded to you in December?
 

Locce

Locce
marcnesiumHH said:
What had the support people responded to you in December?
Click to expand...
After a bit of a back-and-forth and me giving them save files and the information I was able to find out about how this bug behaves they came back to me with the following answer:
(...)
Thanks for that.

Running them here results in some errors that I believe confirm your theory regarding storage.

I actually met with some of the development team regarding these problem saves yesterday, and as a result, we'll be implementing some better data extraction for Franchise saves vs Franchise server data, in the hope that we can pinpoint these exact discrepancies.

Unfortunately for now, there's nothing I can do to make the save functional for you but I'd definitely say to keep hold of a copy as we may very well find a way of getting it out of this state, once the investigation has moved on.

Huge apologies that there's nothing immediate that I can offer on this :(
(...)
Click to expand...
It's a bit frustrating that there is nothing they can do for now on the support-side, but it looks like they at least have a trail to follow now, and it could be that the devs asking for more tickets about this issue last christmas has something to do with them following that trail. That, at least, lets me hope that there is a fix to come. Also, once again thanks to the support team. I really appreciate how they handled the issue.
 

marcnesiumHH

M
Locce said:
After a bit of a back-and-forth and me giving them save files and the information I was able to find out about how this bug behaves they came back to me with the following answer:

It's a bit frustrating that there is nothing they can do for now on the support-side, but it looks like they at least have a trail to follow now, and it could be that the devs asking for more tickets about this issue last christmas has something to do with them following that trail. That, at least, lets me hope that there is a fix to come. Also, once again thanks to the support team. I really appreciate how they handled the issue.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing. I filed another ticket last week, and the support gonna talk to the quality department. I am gonna keep you updated...
 
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